


Multiple Exposures

by dixiehellcat



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Iron Man 2, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Terminal Illnesses, as per Laufire, sequel to gift, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: After Tony tells Pepper about the palladium poisoning, she calls for help and gets more than she asked for.Tony Stark Bingo fill--adopted prompt, 'Tony/Pepper'. Card 3028, spring 2020
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765129
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	Multiple Exposures

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2019 Pepperony Gift Exchange, I was gifted a lovely little gem of a short called mirrors, which was written by Laufire to grant my wish for a fic in which Tony uses his words in IM2. It'd help if you read that one first, and you will be glad because it really is wonderful. Suffice it to say, on the plane coming back from Europe, when Tony talks about going to Venice and Pepper shoots him down, he tells her he is dying. 
> 
> Pepper...is not having that. She has an idea. 
> 
> (mirrors can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788950 )
> 
> Fill for Tony Stark Bingo 2020, adopted fill Tony/Pepper, card 3028

Pepper called Coulson from the plane, after she persuaded Tony to take a quick nap. He grumbled, but she could see the fatigue that pinched his features, the darkness under his eyes that was not from the fight on the racetrack. In fact, she wondered now how she had missed it, these past days. He was a damn good actor, when he had a reason, and apparently, acting like the asshole he used to be in order to push his friends away before he _died_ qualified in his head as sufficient reason. 

She was quietly furious with him, until she looked up after signing off with Phil, and over where Tony sat slumped in the reclined seat. He had refused to unbend enough to actually go to the aft berth and lie down, but he was dead to the world now—no, bad metaphor. He was not dead, and if Pepper Potts had any damn thing to say about it, he wasn’t going to be for a very long time. 

Phil had listened in silence, promised to meet them, and hinted he had connections who might be able to help. She glanced at her phone, noting several voicemails from Rhodey; he had probably seen news reports of the madness in Monaco, but she wasn’t going to call him back yet, with nothing but bare ugly facts and no hope yet to share. She pulled out her StarkTab and tried to focus her attention on her work, while across from her Tony slept on. He woke with a start, about the time they started their descent to land; he blinked like a cat, made a face, scratched at his messy hair, then looked over at her. 

Pepper saw the instant when memory struck home, when his expression morphed from drowsy play-snark to a flash of genuine horror. He was thinking he wished he hadn’t told her, she suspected, and it hurt. “We’re almost there,” she said, keeping her voice calm and level. “Phil is meeting us at the house. He said he had some ideas, some people he trusts who could be able to help you get things straight.”

The twist of his lips would have been a smirk under other circumstances; at the moment, it was just sad. “Since I fucked things up, you mean. I’m…tired, Pep. I don’t want to die but fighting is exhausting. My brain is a fucking colander, I can’t hold onto thoughts, it’s a wonder I got this far. I was just trying to remember some random things, like calisthenics for the ol’ neurons. Happy’s favorite TV show, which fruit you’re allergic to, and it’s—it’s hard. Dammit!”

The frustration in his face shaded over into fear. Pepper could only imagine, for someone who had always felt his real superpower wasn’t his Iron Man suit but the mind that conceived of it, how hard he must be struggling to hold off panic. It made her angry all over again that he had insisted on trying to do it alone. “Strawberries,” she said, deliberately gentling her voice, not letting that irritation bleed through, because god knew he had enough on his plate now.

“Huh?”

“I’m allergic to strawberries.”

“Huh. Oh. Yeah, okay.” He shook himself, just a slight fine tremor throughout his body like waking from a dream, as the plane landed and he stood. 

When he steadied himself with a hand on the seat back, Pepper opened her mouth to offer a hand, then closed it—he wouldn’t want that—then changed course again. She hated how he upended her world so regularly, but somehow she loved it too. “Are you good?”

He cocked his head, and this time the smile was less ghostly, more substantial. “You’re here, so, yeah, I’m as good as I can be.”

It didn’t surprise Pepper that Phil was waiting in the living room when they got to the house. It did surprise her that someone else was with him, a tall black man in a long coat and eye patch. “Agent,” Tony said, and then “Cyclops.”

The man’s one visible eye rolled in amusement, then lost all levity when it cut at Pepper. “I imagine we should excuse ourselves—” he began.

“No.” Tony cut him off at the knees. As worn as he looked, he was still sharp as a razor. “Don’t start, Fury. Everything I know, Pep knows. No exceptions.”

Phil chuckled silently. The other man cocked his head as if appraising Pepper. She looked back steadily, for a moment, then ignored him in favor of Coulson. “Phil, it’s good to see you again,” she said with all sincerity.

“Likewise,” he replied, warmly enough that Tony shot a glare his way. She could almost be amused at the whiff of jealousy in it, this time, as she had not on the plane when she first detected it. Her heart broke just a little at it too, though. “Well, not under these circumstances, obviously. This is my boss, SHIELD’s director, Nick Fury.”

“Miss Potts.” Fury finally seemed to have located his manners. She inclined her head, summoning all the graciousness she could. “Forgive my hesitation. We don’t bring everyone into every loop.”

“I’m already in this loop,” she informed him, “and I’m staying in it.” 

The expression Fury gave her in response spoke of comprehension, and an interesting sort of respect. He said nothing, though, instead hefting a good-sized box from where it sat on the floor at his feet, and offering it to Tony. “We’ve known for a while you were sick,” he said. Pepper forced down a new wave of anger, directed for a change at something other than Tony or the uncaring cosmos. 

Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah? Then maybe you also know I’m good at this stuff. I’ve been looking for a suitable replacement for palladium. I’ve tried every combination, every permutation of every known element.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you, you haven’t tried them all.” Fury gestured with the box. “That thing in your chest is based on unfinished technology.” 

Tony shook his head. “No, it was finished. It wasn’t particularly effective until I miniaturized it and—"

This time it was Fury who interrupted. “No. Howard said the arc reactor was the stepping-stone to something greater. He was about to kick off an energy race that was gonna dwarf the arms race. He was on to something big, something so big that it was gonna make the nuclear reactor look like a triple-A battery. And he said that you were the only person with the means and knowledge to finish what he started.”

“He said that?” Tony looked shocked. He hardly spoke about his father, but from what little she had gleaned from him, and from Rhodey, Howard Stark had not been the most caring father, nor given to much in the way of positive reinforcement. “I don’t know where you get your information, but he wasn’t my biggest fan. He never told me he loved me. He never even told me he liked me, so it’s a little tough for me to believe he told anybody that the future was riding on me. Apparently you knew my dad better than I did.”

Fury seemed unfazed. “Matter of fact, I did. He was one of the founding members of SHIELD.” As Tony’s mouth fell open, the director strode over to Pepper and set the box down. “Miss Potts, you look to be the sturdier of the two at the moment, so I’ll entrust this to you. If he’s the guy Howard thought he was, he can solve this. Agent Coulson will stay to help as needed, as will—” He nodded toward the door, just as Tony’s new personal assistant walked in. Pepper tensed, despite herself. _I knew there was something about her!_ she thought. “Agent Romanoff,” he finished.

The woman looked up sharply, her cool self-containment fractured as she stared around the room. It was, Pepper surmised, as close to frank disbelief as Natalie Rushman, or whatever her name actually was, ever allowed anyone to see. “Boy, you’re good,” Tony broke the silence with a snipe, as usual. “Do you even speak Latin?” She said something in Latin. “Which means?”

“Hold still.” 

She was nearly to Tony when Pepper spotted the syringe in her hand. Without really realizing she had moved, Pepper found herself between them. “What is that?” she snapped at the agent.

“Aw, Pep, my hero,” Tony said from behind her. “Knight in shining armor. I should make you a suit.”

The other woman paused, then held the syringe up, the diffuse lighting of the room glinting off the needle. “Lithium dioxide. It can't reverse the poisoning, but it’ll take the edge off the symptoms, help him be able to work.”

Phil was the only person there, besides Tony, Pepper felt she could trust at all, and he looked perfectly calm. Before she could reply, Tony nudged her aside and made grabby hands. Pepper let out a humph, and Tony made a face that tried to be cutely indulgent. “Gimme a couple of boxes of that stuff and I’ll be right as rain.”

“You weren’t listening,” Romanoff said with surprising patience while she injected him in the neck, near some dark and oddly distended veins. Pepper had to avert her eyes, and she noticed Fury watching her with unexpected sympathy. “It’s not a cure. That’s up to you.” The task done, she dropped her hands and turned away. “I need to go—”

“Back to work,” Fury cut in smoothly, “at Stark Industries, which probably needs the loving attention of its new CEO who has been out of town, am I correct?’

Pepper glared. “Are you suggesting I need a minder from your shadowy alphabet agency now too?”

“Better think twice, Long John.” Tony’s voice was low and tight. “Fuck with me all you want to, I can handle it. Pepper is off limits.”

“She said she’s in the loop, I’ll respect that and treat her as such,” Fury returned. “And no, Miss Potts, not a minder; a helper, a contact. Natasha will remain a floater with her cover intact. Stark needs to stay on premises and get this done.” He glanced at his wrist. “And I have a two o’clock, so you kids play nicely. Tony, I’ve got my eye on you.”

With a sweep of his coat he was gone. “Drama queen,” Tony snorted, then clapped his hands. “Okay. I need coffee, Agent, if you could make a run to—”

“I’m not here for that,” Phil objected and an argument, only semi-serious, ensued. 

Pepper blocked it out and looked to the other SHIELD agent. “So you were spying on us? On me?”

“Not really spying. Shadowing. Once we knew Tony was ill, I was tasked to you by Director Fury.”

“I see. Well, Natalie—Natasha—whatever you prefer—”

“Natasha is fine.”

“Natasha. You’re as competent as anybody else I’ve worked with, and more than some. So, I really could use your help. I do have SI business to catch up on, and we have presentations at the Stark Expo coming at us fast. While I do those, if I make up a list, could you make some phone calls for me? I need to reschedule a birthday party.”

“Reschedule? Not cancel?”

Tony and Phil were heading for the stairs down to the lab. Phil was carrying the box but somehow managed to throw a shoulder in the right place at the right time when Tony slowed a step. They were still arguing. Pepper smiled. “Yeah. Reschedule.”


End file.
